


Tread Softly

by Ruby_Wednesday



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Fluff and Smut, Library Sex, M/M, Poetry, Post-Canon, Roleplay, Romance, just a little damen can't act
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-22
Updated: 2018-01-22
Packaged: 2019-03-07 21:00:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13443297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruby_Wednesday/pseuds/Ruby_Wednesday
Summary: A quiet afternoon in the library, some poems, and soft Kings who like to play games.





	Tread Softly

The first time Damen came to the palace in Arles, he hadn’t been in a position to appreciate it. Granted, he’d arrived drugged and bound on behest of his brother. He’d then spent torturous weeks in captivity, endured indignities his mind would not return to now, and those unpleasant experiences had made the whole place ugly in his head.

Returning now, with the newly-minted golden King by his side and new light in his eyes, Damen could finally appreciate the old capital city. The palace design might be claustrophobic but the intricate details were the work of master craftsmen. The layout might be warren-like but there were plenty of places where you might slip away for some private moments with a lover. The windows were all open, now, and the oppressive drapes torn away. The banners were blue,

Aside from all this, Laurent had grown up here. Laurent had been happy here, once, trailing after his beloved big brother and playing tricks on his nurses. This was where he had learned to read, to fight, to hone the razor-sharp wit and preserve the indelible sense of self that had kept Laurent whole and alive. The reality of that hit Damen in dribs and drabs. Laurent was not reticent around Damen now. He shared easily, as if all of him was there to be seen. But the tidbits he dropped into conversation were varied and unpredictable, tinged with the restraint of someone who hadn’t had occasion to talk about themselves for a very long time, and Damen drank in each and every droplet.

“That’s where Auguste and I watched a four hour production about the first queen,” Laurent had announced, deep in Barbin, on the long parade back to Arles. “He kept falling asleep. I had to poke him in the ribs at each scene change.”

“Oh,” Laurent had said, near a cluster of hills. “I’ve only seen these from a distance. That’s where the poet who wrote The Dark Valley is said to have been inspired. Let’s take a detour.”

In Belloy, he told Damen about a time he had wandered away from his guard when they stopped en-route to one of the estates his uncle had seized over Damen’s tattered back.

“I was young,” he said. “I was still learning to tune out the talk. I went riding, alone, and I got lost. I thought…”

“What?”

“I was young,” he’d said again. “There are myths the country folk believe — that deep in the woods there are doors to the other lands. And in the other lands, there are fae folk who dance and drink in the darkness.”

“Every culture has some variant of that myth,” Damen said, and then he’d looked at Laurent. There was a dreamy look in his eyes. Damen thought about the words, the tone, and saw the shade behind the words. Escape was not the subject, though it was part of it. “What was specific to yours?”

“Oh, you know. The usual. Decadence and indulgence. I grew up in Arles. You can imagine just how much it took to make me hot.” He touched his heels to his horse, leaving Damen hot. That was something else he had enjoyed now, and Damen did too. Laurent was not made of stone. Even when he was strapped down and cruel, Damen had recognized the sexuality under all that restraint. He had missed the mark, at first, without the knowledge he now had but Laurent was no different to Damen when it came to desire. He had a rich inner life, capable of fantasy and imagination, of course he had explored his internal sense of eroticism. It was tied up in his personality and his history, but he had still been a sexual being before the night Damen kissed him on the battlements.

This realisation stayed on the surface, when they passed Chastillon and Laurent casually mentioned how seeing two pets perform in the arena there was one of his earliest introductions to sex. That’s where he learned what two men could do, he said. No-one had told him. He just knew about how it happened for reproductive purposes but his young concept of sex hadn’t extended beyond rolling around. It had been the same for Damen, the first time he’d lain with a girl. Laurent knew that. Damen thought there was something joyful about being able to share this.

In Arles, they shared everything. Painful conversations. Triumphant reunions. The angry pleasure of tearing down all traces of the old regime. Trysts in the coupling gardens and a single, terrible argument that started over bedsheets of all things. Laurent showed him the nicer side of the palace and Damen drank it all in. There was the nursery, where he was educated and entertained. Here was his mother’s solar. There were the discreet corridors that allowed the king to pass through to the queen’s rooms. Here was the veiled bed for the now obsolete consummation ceremony.

Then: “This is the library,” Laurent said. “It’s been refurbished.”

“Ran out of space?” Damen asked. They were alone; two awed pages had closed the doors behind him. The old librarian, now recalled, had been given the day off and the  
scholars and advisers sent away. Just Damianos, King of Akielos, Laurent, King of Vere, and about seven million books. The shelves were so high Damen had to crane his neck to take them all in. There was no wall space, or whatever wall space had once been there was taken up with shelves. But there were windows of clean, clear glass. Much of the window space in the palace was made of stained panes. The library was bright with sunlight which might possibly be bad for the books. Damen didn’t bring that up. Not when Laurent looked so happy.

There was a single long table in the centre of the room, flanked by chairs upholstered in blue velvet. Damen could see ladders and filing systems and two private areas but he was too busy looking at Laurent to focus.

“Not yet.” Laurent took his hand and led him through the stacks. There were books on display, here and there, presumably of significance to Vere. That was the kind of thing Damen needed to study. “There were curtains. They were red. We got rid. It wasn’t fair on the stewards or the scholars. This places has been closed off for a long time but I want to make it a centre of learning again. I don’t want the smartest people in our kingdom going blind in here.”

“I like it,” Damen said. “I’ll have to spend some time here myself.”

Laurent smiled, disbelieving. “The King has the books brought to him. I’m just here to inspect the improvements. Oh, look. My old chair.” It was no accident that they ended up in this particular nook, then. Damen smiled, now, and he rubbed his thumb against Laurent’s knuckle. He’d never get tired of when their hands linked. “Princes don’t really come here, either,” Laurent continued. “But I did, when I was younger.”

“Always the rebel.”

“Much younger,” Laurent clarified, meaning before Marlas. Before…all of it. “I could disappear for hours and no-one ever checked for me. I used to sit here and read…read everything, really.”

“May I?” After a nod, Damen sat on the soft leather and pulled Laurent along with him. Surprise flashed across Laurent’s face. He’d sat in his lap in an inn, fed from his own fingers in a fort, walked naked through the palace outside Ios, declared his commitment to two countries. But Laurent flushed as if this was something daring. “It’s sturdy. Comfy.” Damen rocked the chair a little.

“You don’t need to do that with everything,” Laurent said.

“First of all, yes, I do. I’m…large.” Damen had recently learned, thanks to dear Laurent, that he had a habit of testing the strength of any and all furniture, wagons and structures he encountered. Beds in great houses. Benches in barns. One could never be too careful. “Secondly, I’m just making a statement. This is a large chair. How did you…”

“There was a step,” Laurent said. “I only needed it until I was nine or so. I liked it. I felt like I could disappear.”

“We could move it to our rooms.”

Laurent shook his head. “It belongs here. For now, at least.”

“It doesn’t have to be like before,” Damen found himself saying. “You can get your own books. You can still take time to yourself.” Laurent was so young, still, and he had borne the weight of duty for so long. He had carried more than anyone ever should. He had protected Damen, his life and his privacy, and intended to do so as long as they lived. Damen wanted to do the same, would do the same, and sometimes that meant politics and other times that meant guarding a door.

“I do,” Laurent said. “Somehow, you seem to feature in all of it. I wouldn’t have it any other way.” But he didn’t immediately leap off Damen’s lap. He leaned his head against Damen’s shoulder, curled up like a resting cat, and sighed a little. “I avoided it, too, for a long time. I didn’t want anyone to know what I was reading. I — I didn’t think I deserved any of the things I used to enjoy. I remember coming here and sneakily reading the explicit poetry when I was a curious youth. I’d look every word I didn’t understand up in the dictionary and use them out of context.”

“Most people learn that stuff on the sawdust.”

“I know. Auguste taught me some slang. Even the heir to the throne liked a good swear word. The rest you can thank my guards for,” Laurent said. “But the library…”

“In Ios, scholarly pursuits weren’t valued among the upper classes. You know this,” Damen said. Slaves were the ones who learned poetry and literature. Academia was reserved for those who weren’t strong enough to be soldiers or savvy enough to trade. Damen had enjoyed a great many performances; appreciated the arts, but his education had been about whatever his father had deemed necessary for kingship. Damen was always going to be a king. Laurent’s childhood had been different. “My education served me well.”

“I know,” said Laurent. “Look at the battles you’ve won. The fluency you possess in languages, and so many other things.”

“But this is valuable. So valuable. We’ll make it work for all of our lands,” Damen said.

Laurent was smiling. “And all I had to do was mention the erotic poetry.”

-  
Laurent did very little that wasn’t deliberate. Yes, he was relaxed and open with Damen now but there were parts of him sealed tight. That was his right. There was no law that said Damen needed to see the darkest recesses of his mind to know him and love him. Considering the care Laurent took to maintain his privacy, it was logical to think that the subjects he revealed were chosen with care, too.

Damen kept thinking about the library. He thought about the poignancy of the boy with the books and the sweetness that must have existed then. He thought of how that was lost, but only briefly, and then he thought about the erotic poetry. Naturally, he was no stranger to literature of a salacious nature. He had listened to many such works and been on the receiving end of many unsolicited letters of questionable content. But he thought of Laurent, with his cold exterior, having some minor awakening due to these words. He remembered the creeping realisations of his youth and the eagerness to know more. He thought of the scholar Laurent could have been in another life; the fun he found in games and acting.

Damen had an idea.

-  
He might not have Laurent’s predisposition for scheming but Damen had copious experience in the two things necessary to execute this plan : telling people what to do and also seduction. Gone were the carefree days when he was a young man, taking lovers whenever the whim took him. Damen did not miss that. He had Laurent, who was more than he ever dreamed. But there were times when he missed the freedom. Perhaps that was why the Veretian royals had eschewed privacy and brought sex into the public sphere. How else would they have managed to make love?

It took some time, some odd looks from cheeky Veretian guards, but Damen made the necessary arrangements. Then he took himself to the library, and waited. As always, there were letters that demanded his attention. There were new statutes and old statutes and huge swathes of terrain to learn. But they weren’t the kind of things a visitor would access. Had Damen come from Ios, before his coronation or anything else, he would have been treated to literature and poetry and some further insight into local customs. So, he flicked through what was basically a guide book before coming to his senses. Through Laurent, he had learned the key to a successful ruse to commit totally and utterly to the role. Now was not the time for political texts.

The book at his fingertips was bound in calfskin leather. It pleased him to touch it as if he was making the physical part of the intellectual. The pages were butter soft, gilt-edged and so carefully constructed that Damen felt a new tug in his chest. There was an art here he had never appreciated before.

Without any real knowledge of this work, Damen opened a random page. He thought that when his father insisted he become fluent Veretian he never thought it would be utilised like this.

 

 

> _…the wilderness under embroidered clouds_  
>  _Is purely barren as snowbanked fields_  
>  _Deeper, I go,to secret places_  
>  _Lonely no more, as tides await the dock_  
>  _Pink as maiden’s faces_  
>  _With the deep thrust of —_

 

At the approaching footsteps, Damen slammed the book closed. It was ridiculous that he should be embarrassed by low-brow poetry. But his neck was hot and he felt like he’d been caught doing something wrong. That wasn’t always an unpleasant feeling.

“Am I interrupting?” Laurent sounded amused.

“No, no.” Damen stammered. The poetry was good for something. It had enabled him to be caught off guard. “Forgive me, my lord. The stewards said I would not be disturbing anyone should I read here.” His Veretian was unnecessarily laboured. He even hunched, slightly.

“Is that so?” Laurent, with the unreadable face and single quirked brow, was weighing up the situation. Surely, he could see what Damen was doing? Doubt flooded Damen’s veins in the ensuing silence. Was this a subject he should have broached in advance. Worse, was he dredging up the unbearable. Then, with a flick of his wrist that was uniquely Veretian, Laurent acquiesced. His expression did not change but there was a glint in his eyes. “Well, you don’t need further permission if the esteemed stewards sent you here. Don’t let me stop you.”

With feline grace, Laurent settled into a heavy chair on the other side of the table but diagonal to Damen. He unrolled the parchment that was under his arm as if Damen, who had risen at the entrance of the King as all were expected to do, did not exist. It wasn’t acting when Damen felt strangely clumsy re-taking his seat. His heart had already sped up and the welcome edge of anticipation tingled inside. Any humble visitor would feel the same in the presence of his betters. In Vere, despite the chill, Damen’s preference for plain traditional clothing already set him apart.

He kept his eyes down and re-opened a text about Veretian inheritance laws. Damianos would commit them to memory, so that he knew what he was dealing with. Damen, who was the same person with a different set of goals in this moment, merely skimmed the facts and would return to the practicality at a later date. He skimmed and stole as many glances at Laurent as possible. There was no angle that was unappealing but this was a particularly pleasing view. The desk lamp cast shadows on Laurent’s face and burnished his hair. His lips were pursed in concentration; a rare visual treat from the man who ordinarily held their fullness in taut lines in public.

Damen set aside the legal tome.

He stretched his leg, so his foot brushed against Laurent’s boot. The desk was wide. It was a good thing Damen was tall and Laurent tended to slump in his chair.

“Normally,” said Laurent. “To touch the Prince without permission would result in severe punishment.” He did not lift his head or allow any inflection in his cool voice. Damen did not pull away. His limited acting skills did not stretch far enough for him to act the wide-eyed innocent now. Laurent, like Damen, was no longer a prince.

“Would a modest traveler, come all the way from South Akielos to learn Veretian customs, know such a thing?”

“They should. Or does Akielon royalty allow any old pleb to make physical contact? Don’t answer that. I know their practices,” Laurent said.

“Forgive me.” Damen moved his leg and lowered his eyes. “Your Highness. I should know better…”

“Than -” Laurent prompted. Now that his gaze was averted, Damen could hear the mirth in Laurent’s voice. He was enjoying this, as he enjoyed all games. He was also enjoying pushing the direction of the scene back on to Damen, who tended to start things he wasn’t quite sure how to finish.

“Than to speak aloud in the library. It’s a place of learning and quiet reflection.”

“Indeed.”

Damen re-opened the book of poetry, this time on the first page. It seemed to more traditional, at this point.

 

 

 

> _My beloved, who bore my heirs and brings me joy_  
>  _Welcomed warm on our wedding night_  
>  _Sated and fed by you at our table_  
>  _But my sweet wife cannot compare_  
>  _To the boy I fucked in the stable_
> 
>  

Moving swiftly on, Damen thought that not only did Veretians often lack dignity they also lacked taste in the language arts. Poetry could be a medium for great emotion and a glorious way to tell great stories. Why, he’d heard that scholars were already dedicating themselves to telling the story of King Damianon. But this…this was smut. He huffed, scanning the papers for something more to his taste, when a paper landed on his desk. The curling penmanship was unmistakable.

_Does it shock your Akielon sensibilites?_

_Just my intellect,_ Damen replied and slipped the expensive paper back across the polished table. _  
_

_It’s not meant to be serious. It was part of an unofficial campaign to maintain the status quo regarding the creation of bastards. Aka fuck a boy before and after marriage. The wives are for babies. Context is key._

Damen was smiling. _Are there diagrams? Perhaps that will be more appealing to a barbarian._

_Shall I draw you one?_

_You could show me…  
_

When Damen looked up, Laurent’s lips were wet.

“Some would call that insolent,” he murmured. They were alone, after all.

“I prefer to class it as daring.” Damen’s skin was warm. It was as if he never done this before, with Laurent or anyone. He was no stranger to casual flings, though the man who indulged in them now felt like a stranger to himself . He and Laurent had made love enough times now that he would have to pause to remember them all and may soon lose count. There had been hazy, indistinguishable mornings lazily learning each other. There had been desperate joinings; all too brief, and joyful times when laughter overtook lust. There had been times, acknowledged and not, when it was undercut with anguish but that had brought healing, too.

They had done a lot but they had never done, this. Damen could not have appreciated Laurent when he was younger. Laurent hated him, then, and lived his life behind an impenetrable rampart.

“Are you often daring?” Laurent asked.

“Daring enough to dismiss that as tripe in front of someone clearly well versed in Veretian poetry.”

“Someone..” Laurent pulled his chair closer to the table. Which meant his clothed legs, his supple leather boots, could briefly brush against Damen. He knew, of course, that Damen’s legs were bare and his knee-length chiton had fallen back while he sat. The contact was all in the lower legs, yet Damen felt it in every nerve in his body. “Enlighten me, then, where are the high points of Akielon poetry?”

“In my culture, it is something most often performed by slaves,” Damen said.

“I know. I thought you might be different.”

Damen swallowed. The classic poets all existed in his memory but he didn’t trust himself to say them with any conviction.

“I am different,” he said. “I couldn’t do them justice.”

“What are you good at, then?”

“Listening.”

Abruptly, Laurent shoved back his chair. The wood screeched and Damen’s heart hammered against his ribs.

“Come on,” Laurent said. “This way.”

Damen followed. Two steps behind Laurent, enjoying the gleam of his hair and the view of his back, Damen moved with uncharacteristic haste. They went deep into the stacks in the opposite direction of the previous visit. They made no noise because the carpet was dense, so the accelerated breathing echoed.

“These are the personal collections of the royal family,” Laurent said, pulling back a velvet rope. “The staff are not permitted access.”

“Are Akielons?”

Laurent glanced over his shoulder. “I’m willing to make an exception. As I explained, the works you saw are rather….vulgar. The aim was to appeal to the lowest common denominator. That edition was made specially for this library. Did one of the stewards give it to you or did you find it yourself?”

“I think the library steward was trying to play a prank on me,” Damen said.

“I’ll see him reprimanded.” Laurent ran one elegant finger along the rows of books, bumping on jewel-toned spines. Damen was happy to observe him, a bookish boy in his  
natural habitat; untouched by the outside world. “Ah. This one I remember. I sneaked it out when I was eleven or so. It felt very daring at the time.”

“What is it?”

“A book.”

“Thank you,” said Damen and they were both smiling like it was the most amusing exchange in the world.

Laurent leafed through the pages and the pleasant scent of paper wafted all around. It was nice to be silent here and nice to stand close together and be aware of that fact. Damen’s skin tingled and his fingers ached to touch. He waited. Laurent paused on a seemingly random page and read aloud absentmindedly. Damen understood maybe every fourth word. His father had made sure his language skills were strong, so he may be able to negotiate with enemies and debate with friends. Akielos shared no borders with Kempt, and it had long been an ally of Vere. Damen only knew the basics. You forgot, by the way he carried himself, that Laurent was half Kemptian. His mother was long dead and she never took him home. It wasn’t done, not when you were married to a king. The influence showed itself only rarely ; in the way Laurent added salt to his morning oats and knew the cycles of the moon like the back of his hand.

“You speak the language beautifully,” Damen said. “I know very little.”

Laurent’s cheeks flushed. “My mother…”

“I know.”

“She chose our nurse. A girl she had known since childhood. I wish I could remember the rhymes now.”

“Perhaps…”

“No.” Matter closed. After all, Kempt had not helped Vere when asked not even for the sake of the princes of their own blood. “So, I could be saying anything now and you would not understand. This could be prose about cattle breeding and if I said it with a dreamy tone of voice you would be enchanted.”

“You could say it any way and I would be enchanted,” Damen said. “But I got some words. Like lover.” It was his turn to flush.

“Of course you do,” said Laurent. “Let me see if I can translate. The rhythm might suffer but…it should be better than the dreck you had on the table.”

Damen was warm all over. Laurent, he knew, was not shy. Nor would he offer if he did not mean it.

“Consider me your captive audience.” Damen made himself comfortable on the carpet.

 

>   _“Before I took my lover riding_  
>  _I went to my knees in his father’s house_  
>  _Dusk will fall and we’ll be back, I said_  
>  _Because I would have died if I couldn’t take him out_
> 
> _The wind was too sharp for dawdling_  
>  _So we galloped over verdant fields_  
>  _The threat of rain I could taste in my mouth_  
>  _The breeze it ruffled, through chestnut hair_  
>  _And we followed the river south_

Laurent’s voice was soft and his eyes lowered. It wasn’t a conscious action when Damen stretched out his arm to tug on his sleeve. Elegantly, Laurent folded his limbs onto the floor and Damen did act consciously when he pulled his body close. He liked having his arm around the straight, lightly muscled shoulder. He liked being close enough to feel the heat of his skin.

  
“Go on.” Damen’s voice was slightly hoarse. “Please.”

 

 

> _“We stopped on a bend and opened our packs_  
>  _He fed me figs from his fingertips_  
>  _The roar of the current drowned out the moan_  
>  _He made when I kissed his lips_
> 
> _The musk of rain pricked at my nose_  
>  _As I lay him back in the grass_  
>  _He rakes them same nails all over my back_  
>  _But I touch him like he’s made of glass_
> 
> _Take shelter, he says, and runs for the trees_  
>  _When the first roll of thunder claps_  
>  _A lie it would be to say we’d not felt the drops_  
>  _But by then he was curled in my lap_
> 
> _The trees are thin at this time of year_  
>  _And the horses are starting to whine_  
>  _Laughing, we dash further from shore_  
>  _And luck there’s a cave; we can hide_
> 
> _It’s darker than night and awfully tight_  
>  _There is no room for the horse_  
>  _The lightning rolls in as we huddle up_  
>  _The storm blows everything off course_
> 
> _But he is my anchor_  
>  _And he pulls me to ground_  
>  _My flesh is his map, explorations abound_  
>  _I shiver, though hot,_  
>  _I like it a lot_
> 
> _Clothes get peeled off and our skin is all bare_  
>  _He kisses me kisses me_  
>  _Here there and there_  
>  _Your father will hate me, I didn’t get you home_  
>  _Says he, this was forecast_  
>  _Didn’t each one of us know_
> 
> _Words disappear then_  
>  _Like dust ground from bone_  
>  _The cave curves around us_  
>  _The outside world goes_  
>  _Inside of my lover_  
>  _Both of us home”_

 

Laurent’s breathing was shallow as his voice faded away. Damen’s too, and he was loathe to disturb the careful mood. But Laurent, in this guise, in every guise was often painfully unsure. There were gaps in his confidence, arisen through no fault of his own but a lack in those around him in his formative years, and it was long Damen’s personal mission to fill in those gaps. He loved Laurent, in ways he never thought his ego could allow, but this deep-seeded need to boost would have cropped up with any blushing near-youth.

“That’s beautiful,” he said.

“I botched the translation.”

“You read it beautifully,” Damen insisted. “Was it done with such verve the first time you read it? You were, what, eleven?”

“Eight the first time. Eleven when I fully understood it. I went through a phase that year. Poor Auguste was used to telling me about sword fights and equine husbandry.”

“Maybe he was speaking in metaphor.” In this bubble, Damen could be daring about the most painful thing that existed between them. It was worthwhile risk, as it made a small laugh bubble up from Laurent’s chest. There eyes met, after the daringness had made Damen look away, and there was a fierce warmth there. There was no distance between them, really, and so much of their frames already touching. “May I —”

“Yes,” Laurent said, quickly.

“Be excused,” said Damen, and delighted in the momentary confusion. “I’m kidding! Don’t hit me. I’m going to kiss you now and you can’t hit someone you’re kissing.”

“I absolutely could. But I won’t.” And Laurent was the one who initiated the kiss. His elegant fingers were all in Damen’s curls and his mouth met Damen’s with an abundance of force. There was rawness beneath the sweetness and it made Damen’s head spin. “We don’t have much time.”

“What?” For two kingdoms could stop on their say so. Or cease to be, as was the current plan.

“The stewards will return soon. I’m rarely without my guard.” Breathless urgency laced Laurent’s voice. Damen, not sharing Laurent’s gift for improvisation, simply nodded and  
kissed Laurent’s lips again. He knew the soft, tenderness that Laurent generally responded to and he also knew this was not the occasion for that. He was wound up, hungry for this, and in some part of his mind Damen was the lustful young man that had now matured. He took control of the kiss with a nip and the dart of his tongue. He allowed his hands to roam the length of Laurent’s body and gratefully reveled when Laurent’s touch was just as urgent. His grip on Damen’s shoulders would leave a marks. He kissed quick,  
like they were truly against the hourglass.

Damen thought to pull Laurent astride his lap. But that is what he would do in their bedroom, not the carpeted floor of the royal library. He got to his knees, friction burns be damned, and braced himself with the sturdy shelves either side of Laurent’s head. The height difference gave him a rarely used advantage. He could admire the gleaming hair and the smooth angles of Laurent’s profile. He saw the exact moment when the thrill shot through Laurent’s veins. There was the same look in his eyes as there had been in a dingy inn in Mellos, pressed up against rough stone walls. Laurent liked this. Damen was all to happy to oblige.

Kissing took on a new purpose. Damen was technically in charge but Laurent was urging him on. He changed the angle of the frantic kiss. He raked his fingers up Damen’s exposed thighs, turning brown skin white with his nails and making all his muscles twitch. There was distance between them that Laurent was trying to close but Damen had his own plans.

“Get up.” It was a command, a plea, a grunt. Laurent’s eyes went wide. “Stand,” Damen said and since Laurent didn’t immediately comply, he put his hands under his arms and nudged him to his feet. Laurent looked down now and Damen sat back, admiring. Or maybe he enjoyed knowing Laurent was admiring him. He’d never been in doubt of his own  
looks but a special sense of pride rippled through him whenever Laurent gazed like this. There were moments of appreciation and then there were moments of anticipation where tension stretched, savoured like the finest wine.

It never lasted as long as it felt. Why wait?

Damen got to work on Laurent’s laces, gratified by the pressure beneath them. It thrilled him still to have that affect on the man he once thought made of ice. When he fumbled, it wasn’t acting, though he was quite the expert by now. Laurent might think it an act of verisimilitude but Damen was racing ahead of himself. In the instant Damen lost his grip, he felt a firm hand come down on his crown. There was nothing rough about it just the steadying reminder of who they were. He pulled the last loop free and then he was where he wanted to be.

He knew every beat of Laurent’s body now. There was little unfamiliar about the pale skin and taut muscles and the ready parts of him. But Damen still marveled, still felt lucky to be here.

“We could get caught,” Laurent said, then. Right. Damen got the message : get your mouth on my cock. So he did.

He’d done this before, the night they’d first kissed, and again and again as they learned each other’s bodies. But not in a relatively public place. Not on his knees with Laurent clothed and immaculate above him. Akielon mores made this taboo and that made Damen hot. He applied his mouth, with all that he had, determined to wring every last drop of pleasure out of Laurent.

In this scenario, Laurent reacted immediately. His hips flexed and Damen caught his breath. He had one one hand tight in Damen’s hair and the other clenched around one of the shelves behind him. In the quiet library, the sounds were obscene. You could hear the wetness and Damen’s enthusiasm and the sharp gasps coming from Laurent’s mouth.

“Damen,” he said, which made Damen work harder. He liked provoking these reactions. He was hard and under his clothes and he liked the visible fact of his want and delaying satisfaction.

“Yes?” He couldn’t resist answering as it meant pulling away with a smack. His lips were puffy and damp. Laurent would like that.

“Don’t stop!” He was smiling at the rare outburst and Damen smiled too as he suckled the head back into his mouth. “You’re good,” Laurent continued. Damen continued to smile, or at least be happy. His mouth was stretched in other ways and he used his hands, too. One on Laurent, beneath, and one absently on himself. Bless his old sword masters for encouraging dexterity. “Damen, you’re so good. I —”

When Damen hummed in appreciation, Laurent pressed his hand over his mouth. Damen half-wanted to tell him not to do that; let him be loud, let everyone hear. But that wasn’t their way. It wasn’t part of the game. And right now it was not as enticing as the laboured breathing and the noises that escaped. Damen, who was always hard working, focused all of his abilities on bringing Laurent to his peak. He felt the approach and he witnessed the signs. At the last minute, Laurent shut his eyes and twisted both hands into Damen’s dark hair.

He came with a cry that he quickly cut off and Damen smiled again, proud of himself, as it went down his throat.

“Ow,” he said, when Laurent stopped shuddering. The blue eyes quickly clouded in concern. “No. My knees. But you’ve got quite a grip in my hair there. I won’t need to visit the barber this month.”

“Stop,” said Laurent. “I’ve no energy for responses right now. Let me—” It wasn’t necessary but he helped Damen up. His touch was very gentle as he brushed aside a curl plastered to Damen’s forehead. He held his cool hand against Damen’s cheek for as long as it took for him to compose himself. “Let me—” he said, again. This time his breath was right at Damen’s ear and the tone seductive. Fingers danced down Damen’s chest. He pressed hot kisses along Damen’s jaw.

“Wait —” Damen said. “Not here.”

He helped Laurent back into his trousers and clasped his wrist to urge him along. There was an interval of kissing, pressed against the end of a row of books, the sharp shelves shoved into Damen’s spin and his head spinning. Laurent had always applied himself diligently, completely, to every task and the act of driving Damen insane with the way he moved his mouth and shaped his body was no different. He kept a loose grip of Damen through his tented chiton while they kissed.

“The desk,” Damen gasped.

Laurent raised one brow. “On your back?”

“No.” He showed Laurent what he wanted by returning himself to the chair he’d sat in earlier, and guiding Laurent to the next chair. He slumped, knees spread. Growing up in Akielos, that posture would not have been tolerated for one second. Growing up in Akielos, Damen had his own share of fantasies. “Help me,” he said, gesturing to a random sheaf of paper. “I’m not sure I can make sense of these Veretian codes.”

Laurent was quick and he knew him well. He pulled the heavy chair flush against Damen’s and hooked one ankle around Damen’s bare calf. The leather boot was skin-warmed and smooth. Laurent did not meet his eyes. Instead he peered down at the pages and pointed with one fine finger. After a moment, he took Damen’s hand and held it over the same line on the page. Neither took in any of the words. It was for effect only.

“Have you tutors in Akielos?” Laurent asked, innocently. He was also pushing up Damen’s clothes so his want was exposed to the air. He did not touch him there yet.

“Only the best,” Damen replied. “They say they’re all fit for a prince.”

“Tell me, do you study alone or with schoolmates?”

“Alone,” Damen said. It was not the time to mention that in reality he had sometimes shared tutors with Nikandros: an act of respect his father had initiated after Nikandros was orphaned.

“Any favourites?” Laurent asked, as he idly traced the sensitive skin of Damen’s inner thighs. In some ways, yes. His language teacher had taught him all the swear words he could want. The geography teacher had brought him out into the wilds to see maps in action. That wasn’t what Laurent meant.

“There was one…”

“Oh?” He took hold of Damen now, with a firm grip and edged tone.

“Adolescents get crushes,” Damen said, somewhat defensively. “A retired general taught me the art of war. He —” The look of the man was no longer something Damen could remember. Not really, other than a dark, full beard. He was left with an impression of power and strength and charisma. “He had to retire early. He’d lost an arm in battle. But he had knowledge like no other layperson in Ios and he — at that age, I wanted anything with a pulse.” Damen remembered, now, being unable to shake the feeling that the minutiae of the crush were unacceptable for a prince, let alone the heir to the throne. The rumbling power of that general and Damen’s youth had stirred a desire to be taken. But that’s not what princes in Akielos did — they took.

“There’s more.” Laurent had found a lazy rhythm.

“All the other lessons were boring. I longed for the sawdust and the fields. I had to find ways to keep my mind occupied.”

“Generally, one focuses on their studies.” With a twist of his wrist that made Damen’s hips buck.

“The studies were too easy. I like a challenge.”

“Of course.” Laurent’s smile was as lazy as his hand, now. “So the mind drifted, correct? The warm breeze drifted through open balcony doors along with the salt spray. And you thought, what could make time more pleasurable?”

“Yes,” Damen said, gruffly.

“And what’s more pleasurable to a bored youth than this?” Laurent sped up. “A hand on your cock, moving just the way you like it.”

“Laurent,” Damen said. “Keep going.” He was close.

“Like this,” Lauren said, circling the sensitive head. All of Damen was sensitive now. “Pressure right here, where you’re dripping. No, like this. You like this.”

All his focus was on the building, the hardening, the tightening; the prefect pressure of Laurent’s sure hand. He dropped his head, breathing fast. Laurent’s face was at his neck, his lips at his ear, breathing now. Breath was enough for Damen, and closeness. Nonsense words tumbled out, as always did at the end, always now about how good Laurent made him feel and then he stopped talking because it hit him like the crash of the wave and Laurent caught it all in his fingers.

After, he put his head down on the desk. Laurent chuckled and made use of his handkerchief.

“Sit up,” he said. “Let me—” Laurent righted Damen’s clothing and poured two cups of wine. “You’re so good,” Laurent said, bordering on frustration. “How do you do it?”

Damen lifted his head. “I practiced on a banana.”

“Stop.” Laurent burst out laughing. “You know what I meant. I feel — I feel sometimes it’s a dream. Or a trick. That you can’t really be like this. How do you just know?.”

“Laurent,” Damen said, with all the warmth he had for him. “I haven’t the guile to trick you and you know it. But I think I understand what you’re saying.”

“Can you elaborate? As I often don’t understand it myself.”

“Firstly,” Damen said. “Let’s make a list of all the rooms in all our palaces we haven’t yet made love in. We both like a goal and challenge. And secondly, I feel so much for you  
that words are inadequate.”

“Yes,” said Laurent, and rested his head on Damen’s shoulder again.

**Author's Note:**

> forgive my poetry, please, and any mistakes or typos. and thank you for reading! comments are always very welcome and appreciated.


End file.
